This project will compare the effectiveness of three Community Mental Health Centers in minimizing hospitalization and restrictiveness of care for the chronic mentally ill. Method-development work is focussed on measurement procedures that could be used in comparative studies of catchmented mental health systems. These procedures include the assessment of the size and "hospitalization risk" of the served chronic mentally ill population in each catchment area, the nature, evolution, and cost of actual implemented services that are available to the chronic mentally ill as a part of the public mental health treatment system in each catchment area.